In the related art, there is a known scanning observation apparatus that obtains a fluorescence image by scanning pulsed excitation light emitted from a light source on a specimen, detecting fluorescence generated in the specimen, and associating the detected fluorescence intensity with the scanning position of the excitation light (for example, see Patent Literature 1).
In such a scanning observation apparatus, in order to obtain a high-resolution fluorescence image, it is necessary to shorten the irradiation interval of the pulsed excitation light and the detection interval of the fluorescence.